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"Poised between intransigent scepticism and uncritical credulity, it [science fiction] is par excellence the literature of the open mind."
- John Brunner
 |
| Robot Crab | ||
| An automated gardener. |
Every passage from this award-winning novel has a sort of lyrical beauty, even when describing common objects.
| It was Sunday afternoon and he stood with Molly in a sort of courtyard. White boulders, a stand of green bamboo, black gravel raked into smooth waves. A gardener, a thing like a large metal crab, was tending the bamboo... The robot crab moved toward them, picking its way over the waves of gravel. Its bronze carapace might have been a thousand years old. When it was within a meter of her boots, it fired a burst of light, then froze for an instant, analyzing data obtained... The crab had altered course to avoid her, but she kicked it with a smooth precision, the silver boot-tip clanging on the silver carapace. The thing fell on its back, but the bronze limbs soon righted it. |
| Technovelgy from Neuromancer,
by William Gibson. Published by Phantasia Press in 1984 Additional resources -
|
The problem of enclosing a power source, mechanics for movement and functionality, sensors and a brain to interpret sensory input is a difficult one. One solution used is to have the robot pause to consider its data.
Compare to the automatic cultivators from Piracy Preferred (1930) by John W. Campbell, the conscious farm machines from The Hidden Colony (1935) by Otfrid von Hanstein, the robot farmer from The Turning Wheel (1954) by Philip K. Dick, the field minder from Who Can Replace A Man (1963) by Brian Aldiss, the Robomule from Bill the Galactic Hero (1965) by Harry Harrison, the self-guided tractor from At the Bottom of a Hole (1966) by Larry Niven and the agricultural robot pest controller from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Neuromancer
More Ideas
and Technology by William Gibson
Tech news articles related to Neuromancer
Tech news articles related to works by William Gibson
Robot Crab-related
news articles:
- ThereminVision Sensor: Robot Proximity Detection
- AgBots: Agricultural Robots Take The Field
- Robot Crab: Crustacean Clockwork Automata
- Hexbug Robot Crab
- Robot Motion Planning 10K Times Faster
| Mori3 Autonomous Shapeshifting Robot |
| Tesla Seeks 'Tesla Robotaxi' And 'Robobus' Trademarks Ignoring Prior Art |
| Scary Grid Safety Robots |
| Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout! |
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'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
